Chamber of Commerce Worst Enemy Of American People

They have methodically put into the fine print of everything ordinary Americans are involved in that instead of a day in court binding arbitration is required. Everything from one's credit card and bank account , cell phone and cable agreement....has fine print which subscribers have unknowlingly agreed to. Big business funds the chamber and people who cannot afford to wing it on their own are the victims. That amounts to about 90% of all of us.

Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation&#8217;s financial regulations.

Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.

Tens of millions donated by Lockheed Martin.

And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has been critical of growing federal regulation and spending. These large donations &#8212; none of which were publicly disclosed by the chamber, a tax-exempt group that keeps its donors secret, as it is allowed by law &#8212; offer a glimpse of the chamber&#8217;s money-raising efforts, which it has ramped up recently in an orchestrated campaign to become one of the most well-financed critics of the Obama administration and an influential player in this fall&#8217;s Congressional elections.

THE JAMIE LEIGH JONES AFFAIR

"A Houston woman who says she was gang-raped by co-workers at a Halliburton/KBR camp in Baghdad won a major court battle last week when a Texas judge ordered that she can bring her case to court instead of forcing her into secretive arbitration proceedings with Halliburton and KBR.

"We are ecstatic that [District Judge Keith Ellison] had the courage to uphold justice in this case," Jamie Leigh Jones' attorney Todd Kelly said after the decision.

KBR said late Monday that they may appeal the judge's decision. "KBR will review the judge's opinion and will continue to vigorously defend itself which may include an appeal," the company said in a statement to ABCNews.com.

Jones says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

Jones told ABCNews.com that she hopes other sexual abuse claims will also now be able to go before a jury rather than into arbitration. "I am hopeful that the judge's decision will open the door for other victims to seek justice against military contractors who fail to protect their employees from sexual abuse," Jones told ABCNews.com.

Jamie Leigh JonesJones returned from Iraq following her alleged rape in 2005. She was the subject of an exclusive ABC News report in December, which led to congressional hearings.

After months of waiting for criminal charges to be filed, Jones decided to file suit against Halliburton and KBR.

KBR had moved for Jones' claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom, as provided under the terms of her original employment contract.

Ellison, however, wrote in his order Friday that Jones' claims of sexual assault, battery, rape, false imprisonment and others fall beyond the scope of her employment contract.

"The Court does not believe that Plaintiff's bedroom should be considered the workplace, even though her housing was provided by her employer," Ellison wrote.

Ellison did, however, rule that a sexual harassment claim that Jones included in her case against her supervisor in Texas would have to be decided in arbitration.

Halliburton, which has since divested itself of KBR, has said it is improperly named in the suit and has referred calls to KBR.

In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings and Jones' claims would not have been heard before a judge and jury.

KBR released a statement to ABCNews.com late Monday saying that the safety and security of all its employees remains the company's top priority. "First and foremost, KBR in no way condones or tolerates sexual harassment. Any allegation brought forth is taken seriously and investigated," said the statement.

Jones has started a nonprofit foundation called the Jamie Leigh Foundation, which is dedicated to helping people who were raped or sexually assaulted overseas while working for government contractors or other corporations.

Over the three years since she was allegedly attacked, no criminal charges have been brought in the matter.

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